One Of Mine Is Hard Work

You have never said it out loud and you are not going to.

But there is a particular feeling when you look at the week ahead and see which days you have on your own with which child, and you have noticed the feeling, and noticing it is what has been eating you since about February.

You love them exactly the same. You would go through a wall for them. And they are hard work in a way the others are not, and every single day with them costs more than every day with the others, and you have never been able to say either of those sentences in a room with people in it.

Three things this article will not do, and each one matters.

I am not going to suggest what might be going on with them. No possible explanations, no things to look into, no gentle hint that somebody should have a look. I am not qualified, I have not met them, and this is the single most damaging thing a stranger can do from a distance.

I am not going to compare them to their brother or sister. That comparison is already running in your head at three in the morning and it does not need any help from me.

And I am not going to suggest that this is caused by your parenting. That is the accusation you have been making against yourself for two years, and I am not going to join it.

Graven upon the palms of my hands

There is a verse in Isaiah spoken to a people who were convinced they had been forgotten, and the image in it is unusually physical.

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. (Isaiah 49:16, King James Version)

Graven upon the palms of my hands.

Graven is cut. Not written, not noted, not held in mind. Cut into the part of the hand that is used for everything, so that it is not possible to do anything at all without seeing it.

And the verse before it is God saying that even if a woman could forget the child she nursed, He will not forget. So the whole passage is set exactly in the territory of a parent's love, and it goes past it, and it is spoken to people who were exhausting to love and knew it.

That child of yours is graven there. Not the easy version of them that turns up on good weeks. The one who is hard work on a wet Tuesday.

Isaiah 49:16 cuts a name into the hands of God rather than holding it in mind, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that reach a parent who has been feeling wicked since February.

You are looking at a child who is cut into the hands of God, and the difficulty of them has never once made them less held. Isaiah 49:16 says I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, spoken to people who were hard to love, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts a specific child inside that verse.

Finding it hard is not loving less

Now the thing that has actually been doing the damage, and it is a confusion between two entirely separate measurements.

Love is not the same as ease. You have been treating the difficulty as a reading on your love, so that every hard afternoon registers as evidence that you do not love this child as much, and by now you have a great deal of evidence and a permanent low-level guilt.

Isaiah 49:16 has God committed to people who were exhausting without one word suggesting the commitment was reduced, and the Holy Spirit is not the source of an accounting that treats a hard day as a shortfall in affection.

Some people are harder work than others. That is true of adults, and nobody thinks a person who finds one colleague difficult is defective. It is true of children too, and being their parent does not exempt you from noticing it, it just means you cannot say it.

You are finding it hard rather than loving less, and those two have never once been the same measurement. The written word cuts a name into God's hands without a note about how easy the person was, and the Spirit of God is the one who separates difficulty from affection in somebody who has fused them.

One thing you genuinely like

So here is the assignment, and the word genuinely is doing the work.

Say out loud one thing you genuinely like about that child. And tell them this week.

Genuinely: something you actually enjoy, not something admirable. Not they are so determined, which is a compliment for a difficult child that everybody hands out and which they can hear coming.

Something you like. They notice things nobody else notices. They are funny about the dog. They have opinions about food that are completely unreasonable and make you laugh.

Say it out loud on your own first, because you have not said a warm sentence about this child in a while and the first one is easier without an audience. Isaiah 49:16 has the name cut in permanently, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a parent practices a warm sentence alone.

Then tell them, in an ordinary moment, sideways. Not sat down. Not as a talk. Passing them in a hallway.

Because here is what they are carrying that you may not have thought about. Difficult children usually know. Not the words, but the weather, and a child who has spent two years reading a room correctly needs to hear one thing that is not about their behavior at all.

Isaiah 49:16 has the person named in the most permanent way available, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a parent says a warm thing that is not a correction.

You are able to say one true warm thing, and it has never once had to be about how they behave. Isaiah 49:16 has the name cut in permanently rather than held conditionally, and the Spirit of God is the one who is in a hallway when a child hears something that is not about their conduct.